16.32 We're closing the live blog now. The latest on this story will appear online later today.

15.45 Detective Inspector Kevin Hyland, says the whole of the Met's Human Trafficking Unit is working on the investigation.

"Specially trained officers are working with the women to try and understand their lives, and what has taken place over the course of the last 30 years. This may take weeks and many months. The HTU have had a great deal of experience in obtaining accounts from victims who have suffered physical, sexual and emotional abuse. The very process of explaining what has happened to them is in itself a very traumatising experience.

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"From the outset of us receiving the information the well-being of those women has been our priority, and they continue to be in the care of a specialist non-governmental organisation.

"Whilst we do not believe that they have been subjected to sexual abuse, we know that there has been physical abuse, described as beatings - however there is nothing to suggest that the suspects were violent towards others outside of the address.

"The two people we arrested yesterday are on bail, they have also been arrested on suspicion of immigration offences and we are working closely with the Home Office Immigration Enforcement.

"I am not prepared to disclose the nationalities of the two people arrested but they have been in this country for many years, we also do not believe the victims were trafficked into the UK.

"The Human Trafficking Unit was first formed in April 2010. Since then we have run 150 operations that have resulted in 261 arrests , 288 charges and to date 79 convictions, with a further 38 individuals awaiting trial."

Commander Steve Rodhouse said the force understood "the immense public interest in this case".

"What we must do is everything we can to protect the integrity of our investigation and ensure that we do not damage the collection of evidence or the chances of bringing this to a successful criminal prosecution. Equally we need to respect the needs of the victims in this case.

"This investigation will take some considerable time. There are a number of lines of enquiry to follow up, numerous statements to take, and a number of exhibits to examine.

"We are unpicking a story that spans at least 30 years of these women's lives, and all of this requires police activity to turn that into evidence.

"Whilst that process continues we have released the suspects on bail, but they have not returned to the property where we carried out the operation yesterday.

"Our Human Trafficking Unit have built up considerable experience over the years dealing with the evolving crimes of what people are prepared to do to exploit others and the conditions they enforce upon their victims.

"This case is sadly what we probably all understand as forced labour and domestic servitude, slavery in simple terms."

14.45 Detective Inspector Kevin Hyland says the investigation into allegations of slavery at a house in London involves allegations of "physical, psychological and mental abuse over a period of time"

13.06 Many more people have contacted the charity at the heart of this case since the story broke, Aneeta Prem, founder of the Freedom Charity, reveals.

13.01 Met Police say there are 37 officers working on the case.

12.59 Follow The Telegraph's Martin Evans - @evansma - who is tweeting from the press conference at New Scotland Yard.

12.52 The women were subjected to physical beatings but there is no evidence of sexual abuse, police reveal. The Met also tells press conference that the victims had not been trafficked. There is no evidence the suspects were violent to others.

<noframe>Twitter: Martin Evans - Scotland Yard reveal the <a href="https://twitter.com/search?src=hash&q=%23slavery" target="_blank">#slavery</a> victims were subjected to physical beatings but there is no evidence of sexual abuse.</noframe>

12.51 The house was searched for more than 12 hours yesterday, with police removing 55 bags of evidence and more than 2,500 exhibits.

12.50 Met Police say they are trying to understand the "invisible handcuffs" which kept the women in the house.

12.47 The two suspects who were arrested yesterday were arrested in the 1970s, police say.

12.45 David Cameron described the case as “utterly appalling.” The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told the regular Westminster lobby briefing that the Prime Minister regarded it as an “utterly, utterly appalling case.”

He added: “The importance of this issue and the importance of ensuring that where it is occurring it is brought into the open is exactly why the government is taking through the modern day slavery bill.”

The Home Secretary, Theresa May, expressed her shock at the case.

A spokesman said: “The home secretary is shocked by this appalling case and while the police need to get to the bottom of exactly what happened here, the home secretary has made clear her determination to tackle the scourge of modern slavery.”

12.12 Television crews and journalists from across Europe and the US await press conference at New Scotland Yard, the BBC report.

12.09 Couple arrested yesterday have been bailed until January.

11.39 The London Evening Standard reports that the bail conditions of the couple arrested, who are believed to be Asian, stipulate they must not return to the house where they lived. The Standard says officers from Scotland Yard’s Human Trafficking Unit are investigating if other women were held captive at the “ordinary” address over the last three decades.

11.33 Home Office Minister James Brokenshire says he is "utterly shocked and appalled" by the reports alleging that three women were held captive for 30 years, adding that it highlights the challenge surrounding modern day slavery that it is "out of sight".

11.19 The Telegraph's Hayley Dixon reports on one of the alleged slaves being denied medical help when she feared she had suffered a stroke.

The three ‘slaves’ kept captive in a London house were denied medical treatment, despite one telling her alleged captors she had had a stroke, it is believed.

One of the women is a 30-year-old who was born into captivity and allowed no contact with the outside world, it is alleged.

The woman, who police said had no normal contact with the outside world, was rescued alongside a 57-year-old Irish woman and a 69-year-old from Malaysia.

Their alleged captors are not British, the police confirmed, but provided no further details about their nationality.

"When I met them, it was a very humbling experience. They all threw their arms around me, and apart from crying enormously, they thanked the charity for the work Freedom had done in saving their lives.

"If you have spent your entire life in captivity and know nothing different, then even the smallest freedoms, the smallest things, you have no knowledge of.

"It's going to be a difficult process. Bear in mind these ladies have left with absolutely nothing at all. The charity is going to have to try and help and support them through this difficulty journey.

"The ladies had seen me on various news channels throughout a period of the summer when we were doing a campaign about forced marriages and young girls going missing.

"Underneath my name, the title was 'Freedom Charity', and I think when I spoke to them one of the things that really made them want to ring up and ask for help at that moment was they felt they needed their freedom and we were the obvious people to call.

"They said they felt they could trust me because they'd seen me on the TV."

"We did it in a very slow way to gain their trust, because after 30 years of people being held in very difficult circumstances, one of the things we didn't want to do was to add any more trauma."

09.14 The two people arrested yesterday have been released on police bail. The Met have not revealed the exact location of the house; only that it is in the London borough of Lambeth.

09.02 The Freedom Charity, which aims to advise and support victims of forced marriages or honour-based violence, contacted police after receiving a call following a television documentary on forced marriages.

08.58 To recap on yesterday's events: police rescued a 69-year-old Malaysian woman, a 57-year-old Irish woman and a 30-year-old British woman last month before arresting two people yesterday morning.

A woman who was born into captivity and allowed no contact with the outside world is one of three 'slaves’ who have been rescued after being kept against their will in a south London house for 30 years, the police revealed on Thursday.

A man and a woman, both aged 67, were arrested after officers from Scotland Yard were alerted to the plight of the three women last month.

The pair, who have not been named by police, were later “bailed until a date in January pending further enquiries”, Scotland Yard said in a statement in the early hours of Friday morning.

Detectives from the human trafficking unit said it was the worst case of modern slavery they had ever come across in Britain.

It was, in the words of one charity boss, “just an ordinary house in an ordinary street”.

Yet behind its doors, unbeknown to neighbours going about their daily lives, the elderly home owners were allegedly keeping three women as slaves in conditions that belonged to the pre-Victorian age.

For no fewer than 30 years the women were said to have lived in such terror of the 67-year-old couple arrested on Thursday that they did not dare run away, call the police or confide in another living soul.

Physically and mentally abused, they had come to believe that they had no choice but to remain under the control of their captors.

08.55 Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the south London slavery investigation. Yesterday, a man and a woman, both 67, were arrested in Lambeth after three women told police they had been held against their will for 30 years.